Are you a lawyer? You just might be a psychopath

- A lawyer quoted in The Wisdom of Psychopaths: What saints, spies and serial killers can teach us about success, by Kevin Dutton.

Sound familiar? Let’s hope not. But according to a new book, lawyers are only second to corporate CEOs in terms of professions that attract people with psychopathic tendencies.

Stop the comparisons to John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy right now.

Dutton, an Oxford research psychologist, maintains that many people are “functional psychopaths” who possess some psychopathic traits that they use to become wildly successful in their chosen fields. He calls them “The Seven Deadly Wins”: ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness and action.

Says Dutton, “Any situation where you’ve a got a power structure, a hierarchy, the ability to manipulate or wield control over people, you get psychopaths doing very well.”

Besides CEOs and lawyers, Dutton’s other top psychopathic professions include television and radio, sales reps, surgeons, journalists (gulp!), police officers, the clergy, chefs and civil servants.